 |
  (astralwerks 48797) intro swing lite - alright dischordzilla start the panic hipalong hop fly hawaii this stuff is fresh cheng phooey baby steps party animal nice cave watery glass planet (pt. 3) songs of the night life |
 |
|
|
|
There is a severe psychological problem dogging the world's music-makers. It's called turophobia- the fear of cheese. In DJ booths, bars, and recording studios far and wide you can see the quaking, irrational panic of the lactose intolerant. And from turophobia flows a host of further neurotic disorders. Fear of being different, of experimenting, of smiling, of anything other than living the correctly dressed life of the professional screw-faced misery. Fear not- help is at hand. Dr. Luke Vibert has no fear of cheese. Nor does he embrace it ironically; a safari suit wearer with raised brow and crumbs of gorgonzola in his goatee. No, Luke Vibert just does whatever he likes- because it sounds good, because it's funny, just because. And now he has an accomplice. BJ Cole is a legend in his own lifetime. His pedal-steel guitar has added a unique quality to the work of, well, just about everybody. From post-psychedelia in the early seventies with his group Cochise, through Marc Bolan, Scott Walker, and John Cale to the likes of Bjork, The Verve, Spritualized, the Orb, and Beck. If it slides and comes out of the UK, Cole was probably behind it. "It's the most fantastic instrument in the world," says BJ. "I thought so when I learned it 30 years ago and I still do now." An early infatuation with Hank Marvin's guitar playing with 60s twangy guitar instrumental band, The Shadows, led Cole to steel and a highly successful career as a session musician. His Transparent Music Ensemble albums and performances in the eighties and nineties brought him much critical acclaim. By the mid-nineties BJ was looking for something different, though. A performance at The Big Chill festival in England had set him thinking about the possibilities of working live with a DJ. Cole discussed this with his David Toop, the famed chronicler of the early years of hip hop, and ambient theorist. Toop played him a few albums. It was "Drum and Bass for Papa," by an artist called Plug (aka Luke Vibert) that caught him. "He's a fantastic musician. Listening to that record just blew me away." Luke Vibert has recorded under many alias including Wagon Christ and Plug. He's also remixed the likes of Howie B, Meat Beat Manifesto, David Sylvian, and Nine Inch Nails. Whatever he does, he always sounds like himself- swinging, musical and often funny. Much like his contemporaries Aphex Twin and u-Ziq, he takes a cavalier approach to what is and isn't done in contemporary dance music. So he was unfazed when the steel guitarist came up to him at a club and said he wanted to work with him. When he came up again a few months later, he knew it was serious. Or sort of serious. "It was hardly even a thought-about project," he says. "It was just having a laugh together." Or as BJ puts it, "we sit around getting stoned togethe r- everything flows from there." That's not to say that they didn't take each other seriously. BJ describes Luke as "like a young Mozart, sitting at home churning out fantastic ideas all time." And Luke finds BJ's exploratory nature irresistible. "He's just so open to anything - I've played him everything in my record collection from really cheesy sixties stuff to Squarepusher and Tribe Called Quest and he really loves it all." The laughter evolved into an album which takes its influences from Hawaiian and hip hop, country and drum & bass, Latin and soundtrack, free jazz and exotica. You name it and you'll find a touch of it in there somewhere. What you won't find is pretension - this is the sound of two musicians having fun, each letting the other take them in new directions without worrying too much about whether where they end up is cool. Stop the panic. Start enjoying yourself. |
|||
|
